SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-10 WHAT DO THE FINGERPRINTS TELL US ? Sometimes seemingly trivial clues can be very helpful in detecting crime. A fascinating case came my way about 3 years back, which I solved with practically no clues‑ well, almost. I only had a very trivial clue which no person would have even imagined to be helpful in the least. But let me begin my story from the beginning. On the morning of August 19, 1990, the body of Sunita Babbar was found in her flat in Ghaziabad. Somebody had killed her hitting her head with a heavy rod. She was married two years back and had a one year old son. Her husband Rajesh Babbar a clerk in a local private office was getting Rs. 3000/‑ per month. they were living in a joint family‑the whole family occupying a common ancestral house. The night before the killing, all members of the joint family except Rajesh, Sunita and their little son were out. They had gone to the shrine of Vaishno Devi for pilgrimage. Since a few months, tension was brewing up in the house regarding the meagre dowry Sunita had brought. Sunita's mother-in-law Tejwanti wanted that Sunita's father should have giving them a colour TV, so that the whole family could enjoy with it. However, Sunita's father could not fulfil this demand despite his best efforts. This had led to some tension in the house. Sunita's mother‑in‑law Tejwanti and sister‑in‑law Lali sometimes used to misbehave with her. Sunita's husband Rajesh used to keep quite and steered himself out of this tension. Sunita was quite tensed up with the behavior of her in‑laws. She had even written a couple of letters to her parents about this. In the evening of August 18, Sunita and her husband Rajesh were watching their black and white TV in the drawing room, while their son Raju was sleeping in the other room. At about 9.30 pm. Rajesh's friend Ashok Talwar came and invited him to his house for drinks, as he had recently got the promotion. Rajesh jumped at this offer and immediately got ready to accompany him. When Rajesh went to his bedroom to get ready, Ashok sat near Sunita and began staring at her with lustful eyes. Sunita never appreciated his such habits. Once he had tried to make an obscene pass at her and she had even complained about this to her husband, but Rajesh had laughed the matter off. Sunita had a hunch that Ashok secretly wanted to have sex with her. She had once mentioned this fact in her diary too. When Rajesh came back from his bedroom after getting ready, Sunita requested him not to go away leaving her and her son alone in the house. Rajesh did not want to miss the offer of a free drink. He assured Sunita that he will be back around 11 pm. Sunita knew he has giving a false assurance to her, but there was no option for her. Reluctantly she closed the door behind her. Then she went into her room and having nothing better to do, started writing her diary. She was in the practice of writing her diary since last ten years. This diary ultimately fell into the hands of the police from where the police came to know of many facts about her. Ashok Talwar's earlier lustful behavior and his behavior and intention on the night of August 18, was also mentioned in the diary. Apparently Sunita waited for Rajesh upto 12 at midnight and then slept. Rajesh hadn't come by that time. The police apprehended Rajesh from the house of Ashok Talwar. Rajesh told the police that on the night of August 18, when he had gone to Ashok Talwar's house, Talwar had offered him drink after drink till he blanked out at Talwar's residence itself. Ashok Talwar was a shady character. He couldn't answer police queries very well as to what had prompted him to take away Rajesh to his house on that fateful night, when he knew very well that Sunita would be alone. He persisted in saying that he wanted to give Rajesh a treat on his promotion. On enquiry the police found that Talwar had indeed got a promotion about 3 months back. The question was why he gave a treat to Rajesh after such a long period? Apparently there was no sense in giving a party after such a long gap. To the police Talwar could not give any reasonable answer to this question. Another remarkable fact was that no other person had been invited for that party. In fact it could hardly be called a party. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that Talwar wanted to have Sunita alone on that night. Police inspector Chauhan developed a very weird but convincing theory from his investigations. According to him, Talwar was having a lustful eye on Sunita for a long time, but he was not getting a proper chance. When on August 18, Rajesh's family left for Vaishno Devi, Talwar noticed the opportunity. If he could somehow draw Rajesh away from his house, Sunita would be alone and he would be able to quench his lust. So he came to Rajesh's house at 9.30 pm. and took him away on a very flimsy ground. At his residence, Talwar, completely boozed Rajesh till he lost his consciousness. In the midnight around 12 pm. he came to Sunita's house and rang the bell. Sunita opened the door thinking Rajesh had returned. Thus Talwar gained entry to Sunita's house easily. There he raped her and either killed her afterwards intentionally or she died without his intention to kill her, during the course of rape itself. Frequently during the acts of rape, the rapist tries to stifle the cries of the victim by pushing a pillow against her face. Quite possibly, after Talwar was through with Sunita, he found to his horror that he had inadvertently killed Sunita and then he bolted away, came back to his house and slept. The theory seemed very plausible and all the known facts seemed to fit in perfectly well in this story. It was at this stage, that I was called by the police inspector Chauhan to inspect Sunita's body and the scene of crime. Post‑mortem examination revealed that Sunita had died because of a head injury. Somebody had hit her head with a heavy rod. There were no signs of suffocation. This was a major blow to Chauhan's hypothesis. Yet he insisted that he was right. He had an intuition that Talwar was the killer. He now said that Talwar must have raped Sunita first and then deliberately killed her. This was also a plausible alternative. All in all we couldn't find much to disprove Chauhan's hypothesis. An examination of Sunita's genitals revealed that she was used to sexual intercourse and one act of sexual intercourse had been performed on her shortly before her death. I could not say much about the timing of the act. It could be just before her death or as long as 10‑12 hours before her death. I fixed her time of death (see 'Crime & Detective' February 1993 , page 90) as 2 am on August 19. This meant that the act of sexual intercourse could have taken place anytime after 2 pm on August 18. this was not of much help as Sunita was alone with her husband on August 18, till 9.30 pm. and that act could reasonably have been done by Rajesh himself. Chauhan was desperate to prove himself right and he went to Rajesh and interrogated him. Certainly a strange question to ask from a recently bereaved husband, yet the investigation had to be completed. Rajesh admitted demurely that he and Sunita had sexual intercourse on that day at about 5 pm. Chauhan's theory was still not busted because even after this, Talwar could have indulged in sex with her. I had not said that Sunita had only one act of intercourse. The only thing I could say was that she had engaged in sex shortly before her death. Nobody could have said anything about the number of acts she had gone through. I now concentrated on the scene of crime‑ the place where Sunita's body was found and not before long I found two short clippings of nail on the floor. It appeared that Sunita had violently resisted on attack on her and during the scuffle, the assailant tried to scratch her. During this act the nail of the assailant broke and fell on the ground. When we examined Talwar's hands all his nails had been recently clipped. Chauhan insisted that Talwar had become aware of his broken nails and to hide this fact he had clipped all his nails. Anyway, I managed to take a small sliver of nail from each of Talwar's fingers. In 2 hours, I was able to tell Chauhan with cent per cent certainty that Talwar was not the culprit. How did I do this feat? Well! before I go ahead, look at your nails very carefully. You will find long striations over them, some of them are thick and some are thin. These striations are there in a fixed pattern in each individual. Every individual could be recognized positively by his unique pattern of nail striations. I tried to match the striations of the broken nails, I had found on the floor with the striations of nail silvers I had clipped from Talwar's hands. I tried hard to match them but couldn't match them at all. We can look at the nail clippings in three major ways. Fig 1 shows all these three ways. One is to look at the untreated fingernail. A better way is to first put a thin layer of metal on the fingernail and then look at it. Another way is to look at it between crossed Polaroid films. Very few crime specialists like to look at the nails in the last way but for the sake of completeness I have mentioned all the ways. Another important fact to remember is that the striations would not match even in twins sisters. Both fingernails have been taken from the left little finger. You can easily find out that the striations do not match at all. The striations also do not change over a period of time. They remain constant and are thus a very valuable tool for positive identification. Fig 3 shows 4 clippings form the same person, taken over a period of 10 years. You can see that all striations match perfectly with each other. So, these clippings really came as a boon for Talwar. He had been arguing about his innocence from the moment he was apprehended but nobody was ready to believe him. In fact all the available evidences pointed so strongly at him that nobody could think in a different way. Now, that Talwar was exonerated, the police made more searches. Rajesh reported very soon that from his almirah some jewellery and cash were missing. The theory now shifted to that of burglary. Three noted burglars of the area were apprehended after 15 days. I took nail clippings of all the three and could say positively that out of them Kartar Singh was the one, who had committed the burglary and murder. His nails striations matched perfectly with those I found on the floor. On sustained interrogations Kartar Singh admitted his guilt. In the court too, Kartar Singh confessed his crime. The court gave due importance to my medical evidence and Kartar Singh was jailed for life. It was at that moment that Talwar came to me and touched my feet. It was my evidence based on science, which had exonerated him. I sometimes think now, what would have happened, had I not found those clipping, had I not found those clippings? Sooner or later Rajesh would have discovered that his cash and jewellery were missing. But, could merely that finding, in the absence of clippings, have saved Talwar? Could Talwar's lawyer successfully plead in the court that it was the work of a burglar and not of Talwar, because cash and jewellery were missing? I think no, because the prosecution could have argued that Talwar took away cash and jewellery just to give it the look of burglary. Talwar would have been in a difficult position to counter such argument. In fact, in past, sexual murders have been committed by family friends, who have done just this to give the whole situation a look of burglary. Anyway, even if court would have given him the benefit of doubt (which I feel impossible). Talwar would have undergone the agony of a long court ordeal. The finding of nail clippings exonerated him completely in just one go. ***

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-9 TESTING FOR HOMOSEXUALITY Two years back, I was involved in a most bizarre case. A young boy of eight, Kalu was once coming home from school. The time was around 2.00 p.m. Two sturdy looking persons came to him and lured him away with a chocolate. They took him to his house and tried to have intercourse with him tried to have intercourse with him through anus. When the boy protested, they offered him a ten‑rupee not for this "little job". He was told that he would not be hurt. Kalu was a poor boy and a sum of Rs.10/‑ was big amount for him. He could purchase many toys with that amount, which he had always wanted to. Although he did not like the idea of someone introducing his 'organ' in to his anus, yet the lure of the money let him allow that. During the act, however, he suffered from great pain and even bled slightly. His gait became painful and wobbling after that. When his parents asked him why he was walking in a peculiar way, he replied cautiously that he had fallen down and hurt himself. The parents paid no further attention to him. However things did not stop there. The next week, the two youths met Kalu and suggested the same bargain. The boy hesitated a little, but then decided that he could do with another ten rupee note! From then on, this became quite regular. Those two youths would regularly have anal intercourse with Kalu‑almost twice every week‑and would each time give him ten rupees. The affair went on for quite a number of weeks. Then trouble started when the boy developed some ulcers around his anus. These ulcers were discharging pus. His parents thought that the boy had caught some infection and so brought him to me. When I examined him I found that he was suffering from syphilis‑a venereal disease. Such a young boy could catch syphilis in only one way‑through anal intercourse. I explained the situation to his parents and at the same time informed the police also, because it had become a medico‑legal case. Kalu's parents lost their temper and started beating Kalu. Kalu then revealed that Jagga and Kaka, two youths of his area had been using him in this way. Before we go on with our story further, a few words about homosexuality or 'coitus through anus' would be in order. Intercourse through anus is known as sodomy or buggery. An adult male can perform anal intercourse on an adult male, adult female or on a young child(of either sex), as in Kalu's case. When homosexuality is done on an adult male, the practice is known as homosexual sodomy. When a male commits anal intercourse on a female, it is known as heterosexual sodomy. When a child is used, the practice is known as paederasty. This child is usually known as a catamite. The person who performs the act is known as the active agent and the one on whom the act is performed is known as the passive agent. Sometimes two adult males act as active and passive agents alternately. More commonly however, a passive agent always remains a passive agent. n our country, many people regularly earn their livelihood by acting as passive agents and charging a fat fee from their customers. These are known as male prostitutes. Several hijrahs whom are all familiar with, mostly act a passive agents,. Several boys like Kalu agree to become passive agents for the sake of money only. In our country, anal intercourse is a crime. According to section 377 of I.P.C., if it can be proved in anal intercourse, he can be sent to jail for 10 years. So Jagga and Kaka had every reason to deny their involvement in anal intercourse with Kalu. It was not merely a matter of shame, but a criminal act. As we shall see later, they did deny their involvement and it remained for me to prove conclusively that they had indeed used Kalu as a passive agent. An interesting thing is that if a passive agent consents for anal intercourse, even then the he can be incriminated under Section 377 of I.P.C. In our case, Kalu had consented for the act, but since he was only eight years old, his consent was not valid and he could not be incriminated. According to our law, any child under 16 years of age can not understand the nature of such acts and thus his consent for such act is not legal. Another interesting thing is that if a person performs anal intercourse on his own wife, even then he is a culprit under section 377 I.P.C. If his wife consents for such an act, then even she is a culprit and both can be sent to jail for 10 years. A wife can refuse her husband who demands anal intercourse from her. Interestingly she can not legally refuse normal vaginal intercourse to her husband even if she is not in "mood", but she can and must refuse anal intercourse, because if she does not refuse anal intercourse, she also becomes a culprit. If a wife refuses normal vaginal intercourse with her husband and her husband forcibly commits such an intercourse with her, she can not bring him before thee law, but the same is not true of anal intercourse. Not only can she send him to jail for 10 years (if she wants to), but is also entitled to divorce him In fact if a male commits anal intercourse on any man, child or woman, the wife is entitled to divorce him. So much regarding some of the legal points regarding homosexuality. When Jagga and Kaka were interrogated by the police regarding their criminals act, they denied any such involvement. So the burden of proving their involvement fell on me. Whenever a passive agent is brought to us, we examine mainly his anus which tells us several tell tale signs. The person is examined in a knee‑elbow position (Fig.1) . In this position the person rests on his knees and elbows. This position is chosen because it exposes the anus in a most prominent way. I first 'inserted a cotton swab (just like Johnson's buds; but with longer handle) into Kalu's anus. The idea was that if any seminal fluid was present in the anal canal, it would be absorbed by the cotton. It could then be tested for the presence of seminal fluid. the presence of seminal fluid in the anal canal confirms that buggery has been done on the passive agent. One of the most common preliminary tests to confirm semen is the Florence test. In this test, we prepare an extract of the suspected, seminal fluid from the anus and mix it with the Florence reagent. If the suspected fluid is semen, then dark brown needle‑shaped crystals are formed (see figure 3) Formation of these crystals confirms the presence of semen. We also try to look at the extract under the microscope. The presence of small tadpole‑like sperm cells confirms the presence of semen. We also see the underwear of the active and passive agents under a special light, the ultraviolet light. If seminal stains are present on the underwear, they begin to glow brightly. The examination of anus also tells several things. Figure 2 shows three main findings in and around the anus. For the purpose of clarify, anal opening is shown slightly enlarged. An important is tearing of the skin around the anus. this is known as fissure. these fissures appear because of the introduction of large‑sized male organ in relatively narrow anal canal. Second important thing is the laxity of the anal sphincter. Anal sphincter is a circular muscle which acts much like a highly elastic rubber band (Figure 3) . It actually checks the faecal matter from coming out involuntarily. But when male organ is repeatedly introduced in the anal canal, as during buggery, this sphincter becomes lax and the anus starts gaping. The third important sign is the smoothness of the covering of the anal canal. If we dilate the anus of a normal person and look inside, we find that the covering inside is much like an orange peel, i.e., rugged and rough. But repeated acts of penis insertion smoothers out the ruggedness of the covering. These three signs were quite suggestive that the boy was being used as a catamite. Interestingly, when I subjected the swab taken from Kaka's rectum to Florence test, it came positive for seminal fluid. His anus also showed all the three classical signs. The lawyers of Jagga and Kaka could not refute this hardcore medical evidence in the court. The court admitted my evidence and sentenced both of them to ten years of rigorous imprisonment.

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-7 WHEN THE BODY TURNS BLUE ! The police found the hanging body of Basesar at 7.15 am. on February 26, 1983. The body was naked except for a dhoti ( dhoti is a piece of cloth wrapped over the loins. It is a popular piece of garment in warm countries like India) over his loins. The head was tilted to one side. The body was hanging from the branch of a thick fat banyan tree at the outskirts of his village. From a preliminary look one could say that he had been hanging for several hours. His wife had been looking for him since the previous day. He usually came back from work at 5.00 p.m., but on the evening of February 25, he did not turn up. His anxious wife waited for him till 8.00 p.m., then made inquires from relatives. When everybody answered in the negative, she made a complaint at the police station at about 9.00 p.m. To be sure, Basesar was facing several difficulties. Last year he had taken a loan of over one lakh rupees ( Lakh is an Indian measure, meaning one hundred thousand. Rupees is Indian currency) from the local moneylender against the security of his house and fields. He had married off his two daughters with that amount and had done some long-pending repair work in his house. He was sure that he would he able to repay his loan, but this year’s crop was destroyed in the rain and he did not have enough money to run even his own house. The moneylender had been demanding his money from Basesar for the last several days. Last week he had even sent two goons to him to terrify him into paying back the money. The moneylender had set his eyes on Basesar’s property, which he could acquire at very cheap rates. It was not hard to imagine that under such desperate circumstances, the aging Basesar had taken the extreme step of committing suicide. When Basesar’s wife saw his dead body, she started crying and wailing. The police took off the body from the tree and then called for me to make a preliminary examination of the dead body and of the place, where the dead body was hanging. They thought that they could get some lead from my examination. When I reached the spot, the body had been lying on the ground for some half hour. I looked at the feet and then turned over the body. The back was bluish purple. I pressed the back with my thumb for about half a minute, then removed my thumb and looked at the back again. Then I turned to the Investigating officer, Gajendra Singh, and said, “It’s a case of murder and not suicide”. Gajendra Singh was obviously taken by surprise. I had hardly examined the body in any detail. I had not even conducted a postmortem examination. Then how on earth could I say it was a case of murder? Let us start the story from the beginning. When a person dies, his heart stops beating and the blood comes to a standstill. Gradually this blood starts gravitating to the lower portion of the body. If you moisten a sponge thoroughly and keep it on a table for 3-4 hours, you will find that its top portion has dried while the bottom portion has become even more moist. What actually happens is that the water within the fibers of the sponge starts gravitating to the bottom portion of the sponge. After 3-4 hours practically all water has seeped to the bottom of the sponge. This makes the top portion dry and bottom portion moist after some time. Practically the same thing happens in a dead body. All the blood starts seeping to the bottom portion of the body. After death, generally a body lies on its back, so all the blood collects on the back. This collection of blood gives a characteristic bluish purple color to the portion of the body where it collects. This coloration is known as postmortem staining or hypostasis (Figure 1). Those portion of the body which are in firm contact with the ground remain pressed and no blood collects there. So these areas remain pale. In Figure 1, one can see that the hips and shoulder blades which remain in firm contact with the ground are pale, but rest of the body has turned bluish purple. Post-mortem staining or hypostasis can tell us many important points regarding a crime. Post-mortem staining (or p.m. staining, for short) starts to appear by about 2-1 hour after death and in 4 hours, it is quite well established. If at this time, one presses the area of p.m. staining for about 2 minute, the blood collected blood starts to clot. So after 6 hours of death, if one presses the area for 2 minute or even more, the area will not blanch. The p.m. staining is now said to be fixed. The fixation of p.m. staining appears after 6 hours. So, by seeing the p.m. staining and if it is fixed or not, we can say how long a person has been dead. P.M. staining tells us another vital aspect about death - the position of the body after death. The blood will gravitate to the lowest portion of the body and stain it. Thus if the body was lying on its back, the back portion will get stained as shown in Figure 1. But if the body were lying prone, i.e. on its stomach, then chest and stomach will get stained. If the body were hanging as in the case of Basesar, then feet will get stained (Figure 3 ). On the other hand, if somebody tied the body by legs and hanged it upside down, the face and hands will get stained (Figure 4 ). It all depends on which portion of the body was lowest. If the body was lying on its back for say 3 hours, then the p.m. staining would develop on the back , but it swill not be fixed (as we have already seen). If at this time somebody turned the body, so that it came to lie on its stomach, the blood collected at the back would start moving to the chest and stomach, because in the new position these are the portions which are lying lowest. This causes the staining to disappear from the back and reappear on chest and stomach. This is called shifting of the p.m. staining. Continuing will our old analogy of sponge, if after keeping the wet sponge for 3-4 hours, you invert it, the previously dry portion will become wet and the wet portion dry, because the water will start moving to the new low position. However when the p.m. staining has become fixed, then the turning of the body does not cause shifting of the post-mortem staining. It is because fixation involves clotting of blood and the clotted blood does not move. Thus if a body has been lying on its back for say 8 hours the p.m. staining would become fixed on the back. Turning the body over on its stomach now would not cause shifting of p.m. staining to a new area. Now I must tell you what I found in Basesar’s body. When I examined Basesar’s legs, I did not find any p.m. staining there, which puzzled me somewhat, as Basesar had been found hanging. Then I turned over the body and looked at the back. The back showed p.m. staining. This meant that the body had been lying on its back for a minimum period of 6 hours, after which someone hanged the body to give the appearance of suicide. Since the p.m. staining has already become fixed on the back, it did not shift to the legs later on when the body was hanged. From this examination, I could deduce the whole crime scenario in great detail. Basesar was murdered at least 6-8 hours before, perhaps 10 hours before. Then for some reason his body was kept lying on its back for 6-8 hours. Then someone hanged his body to give the appearance of suicide. The police swung into action now. The local moneylender Dhanprasad denied any hand in the murder. Under sustained interrogation however, he did admit having sent his two goons, Kallu and Lalla to Basesar. But he reiterated that they had been instructed merely to terrify him into paying. Murder was never his aim. Kallu and Lalla, when interrogated, denied all knowledge of murder. They said that on Dhanprasad’s instructions they did go to Basesar at about 5 p.m. on February 25, but had merely enquired from him about the repayment of loan. They said that they had departed after half an hour when Basesar had assured them to do something regarding the loan soon. However the police knew the blueprint of the story now, so they pressed them further. Under sustained interrogation, they broke down and told the whole story which was an eye opener. On the evening of February 25, when Kallu and Lalla met Basesar at 5.00 p.m. he expressed his inability to repay the loan. Kallu and Lalla then took him to the outskirts of the village. The idea was to beat the hell out of him. However before they could start a beating, an altercation started and Kallu grabbed Basesar by the neck. In the heat of passion, he did not realize that Basesar by the neck. In the heat of passion, he did not realize that Basesar was an old and ailing man and the slightest pressure on his neck could prove dangerous. It was only after he felt Basesar going limp in his arms, did he realize that he had unwittingly murdered Basesar. Both of them now panicked. They did not know what to do. Lalla suggested that they should hang Basesar’s body from the branch of a banyan tree. Everybody would then think that Basesar had committed suicide. The idea appealed to Kallu. They did not have a rope however. It was decided that they would cover Basesar’s body with leaves, twigs and grass, go back to village and bring some rope. When they were leaving for the village, it was about 8.00 p.m. They saw a big marriage procession coming towards them and gathering towards some tents which had been pitched to receive those guests. Doing all the gymnastics of hoisting Basesar’s body up the banyan tree was no easy task, especially with so many people only a few hundred yards away. Anyone could wander towards the jungle and catch them in the act. It was decided that they would wait for the marriage procession to dispense away and then they would start their work. It was nearly 4.00 a.m. on February 26, when finally the marriage rites were completed and everybody went away. Now Kallu and Lalla returned to the jungle and hoisted Basesar’s body up. So Basesar’s body was lying on its back for almost 8-10 hours. This caused p.m. staining to appear on the back and become fixed there too. So when finally Basesar’s body was hanged, the p.m. staining did not shift to the legs. This little knowledge of p.m. staining could help me to unravel this seemingly impossible case in no time. There is hardly any doubt that without medical evidence, the case would have passed off as a suicide. The court admitted the medical evidence and awarded a sentence of 7 years’ rigorous imprisonment to both Kallu and Lalla.

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-5 WHAT DO THE BITE MARKS TELL US ? Many a time we deal with crimes, which involve bite marks. Often bite marks are the only clues that we get in a murder case. There was a time when one could not infer much from the bite marks, but now we can easily catch the criminal form his bite marks. Bite marks are seen in cases like rape, murder and sexual assaults. I remember many cases of rape and murder, when in a sexual frenzy, the assailant bit the breasts and cheeks of the victim. When I conducted the post-mortem examination on such cases, many times I found that bite marks were the only clues available. Identifying the criminal from these bite marks was a very interesting experience. We can identify the criminal from his bite marks from the fact that each individual has teeth of different size and shape. One must have noticed that some people have short teeth, some have wide spaced teeth, some have buck teeth, some have crooked teeth and so on. Manya a time the differences in size and shapes of teeth are very obvious to even a layman. But in many other cases, a layman is apt to think that there is not much difference in the teeth of any two individuals. However, if a scientist closely examines the teeth of such individuals he can easily spot many differences. It has been seen that the structure of the teeth of an individual is almost as unique as his fingerprints. Since the teeth of all individuals are unique, the bite marks produced by them are also different. It has been estimated that the odds against two persons with full set of 32 teeth producing identical bite marks are 2.5 billion to 1. This means that in India, with a population of 1.2 billion, no two persons will have identical bite marks and in the whole world with a population of about 7 billion, only 2 or 3 people will have identical bite marks. This is a very reasonable conclusion and courts will not hesitate to prosecute a criminal on the evidence of bite marks. How do we proceed in such cases? Well, many times the bite marks are obvious, but at many other times bite marks are very faint or even invisible. In such cases we flash a special light on the dead body. This is called ultra violet light or UV light. Human saliva shines brightly in UV light. Wherever the attacker has bitten his victim, his saliva stains are bound to be there, although they may dry up. These saliva stains start shining and we can immediately know that this is the place where bite marks are present. Next, we photograph the bite marks. If the bite marks are visible, we photograph them straightway with ordinary light. If they are invisible, we photograph them using special UV light. These photographs are then enlarged so that they become real life size. Then we question the police regarding the suspects. Suppose the police has 20 suspects in mind. We call all 20 suspects in question. We make plaster-casts of the teeth of all of them. Naturally, since the teeth of all people are different, their plaster casts are also different. Then we take out the bite mark photograph and superimpose the plaster-cast over the bite marks. Only one plaster-cast will exactly superimpose the bite mark and this gives away the actual criminal. This technique is similar to a small game which children play sometimes. They have a map of the world and several "cutouts" of various countries. If they want to know where a particular country, say Switzerland is located, they will take the "cutout" of Switzerland and try fitting it over various places on the map. Since the shapes of all countries are different (just as shapes of all teeth are different), only one place on the world map will exactly fit the Switzerland "cutout". This gives the exact location of Switzerland. Figure 1 here explains the method outlined earlier. At the top, we see the bite marks on the cheeks of a girl who was raped and murdered. These bite marks are quite faint and difficult to recognize, but in UV light they become very prominent. The bottom of the same figure shows the same marks in UV light and one can appreciate how nicely they appear now. The police had three suspects in this case. The doctor prepared the plaster-casts of the teeth of all suspects (middle) . One can see that the casts are different in all cases. The actual rapist and murderer was the one whose cast appears on the extreme right. Bite marks are seen on breasts too. In another case, the bite marks appeared on the breast ( fig. 2 , top). The casts of the teeth of many suspects were prepared and only one fitted the bite mark exactly. (fig. 2 , bottom) shows the plaster-cast which exactly matched the bite mark. This gave away the criminal. Incidentally these photographs are from the infamous Biggar murder case tried in Scotland in 1968. This case was described by one of the investigating officers as "a triumph for forensic odontology". The matching of the marks on the victim's breast (top ) and the attacker's tooth (bottom ) had to be conclusive, since it was the only proof of the identity of the murderer - one of 29 suspects! Bite marks help us in several other cases too, which have nothing to do with rape and murder. In one case a thief entered the house and stole costly jewellery and cash. When he was about to come out, he saw an apple lying on the dining table. Perhaps he was hungry and he took a lusty bite at the apple (fig. 3) and then left the apple at the dining table. He must not have imagined even in his wildest dreams that he could he caught by this seemingly innocuous act of his. When the police came, they found the apple and submitted it to the doctor. He immediately preserved the apple in a special chemical (formalin) so that the apple did not disintegrate. Later the police caught one suspect but he denied that he had committed the theft. When the doctor examined his teeth ( figure 3, middle) , he was convinced that he was the man who had bitten the apple. Another apple was brought and he was asked to bite into it ( fig. 3, bottom ). The bite marks of the a crime scene apple (fig. 3, top) and the a test apple (fig. 3, bottom ) matched exactly. Faced with this evidence, the thief broke down and admitted his crime. I will round up this account by suggesting a simple experiment which any one can conduct at home. This will give one the satisfaction of becoming a detective also. Take an apple and ask one of your family members to take a bite. Tell them to take the apple away to a different room and ask them that only one member should take a bite at it. Ask them not to reveal the name of that person. Tell them that you can find out who bit the apple just by seeing the bite marks. When the apple is brought to you, look at the bite marks carefully and then examine the teeth of all your family members. Most probably you will be able to tell the correct person just by this. But if you are not able to, then give one apple to each and ask them to take a bite each. Now compare the bite marks and you will be able to tell surely who bit the apple. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? If you can do it, it means you have the traits of a good detective. All the best!

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-4 WAS SHE ACTUALLY RAPED ? Sexual crimes are on the increase these days. Many times we are asked to examine girls and young women- both alive and dead- who have been sexually molested. The questions which the police wants to ask us are many. One of the questions which is invariably asked is whether the woman has been raped or not. It might seem surprising to many here, why the police wants to ask this question. After all, if a woman is asserting that she has been raped then she must have been. Unfortunately this is not true in all cases. Many times women falsely accuse innocent men of having raped them. In such cases it becomes very important for medical personnel to thoroughly examine the victims and tell the police whether she has been raped or not. To determine the answer to this question, the doctor relies very heavily on examination of female genitalia and it would be pertinent to have a quick review of the structures present there. Fig 1 shows the genitalia of a female who has recently had a sexual intercourse. On the top one can see the pubic hair and at the bottom is anus. In between are structures which are collectively known as vulva. Two main openings can be seen. The upper one is urethra through which urine come out. The lower one is the vaginal opening. Intercourse takes place through this opening. Menstrual blood comes out of this opening too. Both these openings are covered by two very thick fleshy lips called labium majus . Clitoris, a very sensitive, pea sized organ lies at the top, between the folds of the labium majus. The vaginal opening is covered in the virgins by a thin delicate membrane- the hymen. It is very thin and delicate and ruptures on sexual intercourse. The first thing that we do is to look whether the hymen is intact or not. If the hymen is intact, the presumption is that the female is telling a lie and trying to implicate the person falsely. In the diagram 1, the hymen is showing a tear at 5 O' clock position. By referring to figure 2, you can know why this tear is called to be at 5 O' clock position. Forcible intercourse also causes injuries to vestibule, an area lying between urethra and vagina (see fig 1) . Injuries may also occur to fourchette and perineum. These are very strong indications that the woman has been raped. Even married women, who are used to sexual intercourse by their husbands don't show rupture of fourchette, perineum or vestibule. Sometimes the walls of the vagina may be so severely torn that they may reach the anus. This is a very severe injury and may even cause death. This is a certain sign of forcible rape (fig 3) . Most people who commit rape are of low socio-economic status and suffer from multifarious venereal diseases. During intercourse they transmit these diseases to their victims. A careful examination of the victim for the signs of disease is also very helpful in estimating whether rape has been done or not. This is a very valuable pointer to us. Interestingly, this can happen the other way round too. An infected woman may give the disease to her attacker, and can thus punish him in more ways than one! She not only gives him a nasty disease, but if the same disease is found in the accused, as that in the woman, it may be a strong indication that he really assaulted the female. We also introduce a cotton swab deep in the vagina (fig 4) and take out the semen from the vagina. In an unmarried female the presence of semen in the vagina is a very strong indication that rape has taken place. We can identify the semen by making a smear of the semen on a glass slide and looking under the microscope. If the material picked up by the swab is indeed the semen, then we see thousands of little snake like sperms (fig 5). Thus the presence of sperms almost confirms that we are dealing with a case of rape. But what about rape on married women? Married women may have sperms in their vagina as a result of intercourse with their husbands. For this we have a slightly more complicated technique. These days there is a special technique called DNA fingerprinting which can differentiate between sperms of any two or more given individuals. We apply this technique and know whether the sperms belonged to the victim's husband or not. Other injuries that we look for are injuries on the thighs, buttocks and abdomen. During a forcible rape, the person tries to force the thighs apart while the women wants to keep them together, to avoid rape. In this scuffle, injuries appear almost invariably on the inner side of abdomen (fig 6). During passionate love storm, the assailant may attack victim's breasts, producing multifarious injuries to the breasts. He may tug at the breasts, squeeze and scratch them, suck them or even bite the nipple off. This might produce several injuries to the breasts including teeth bite marks (fig 7) . These injuries strongly suggest that forcible intercourse may have taken place. Most of the times, the victim scratches at the assailant and thus small tags of skin can be found underneath her nails. These tags of skin obviously belong to the assailant. We can take these tags of skin out and can estimate the blood group of the individual. This can help us greatly in nabbing the criminal. We can even do DNA fingerprinting with these skin tags. This can pick out the culprit from among millions. When the accused is apprehended, he might deny that he had sexual intercourse with the victim. Forensic experts again come to the rescue of police here. If his body shows multiple scratches, abrasions and bruises, it is a clear indication that he has had a scuffle with someone. But he case is clinched by another very ingenious technique. If the accused has had a sexual intercourse with the victim, there could be vaginal cells over his penis. These vaginal cells can not be seen with the naked eye, but can be detected by a test. These cells turn brown when exposed to the vapors of a chemical (Lugol's iodine). We wipe the skin of the penis with a filter paper moistened with salt solution and then expose it to vapors of Lugol's iodine. It the filter paper turns brown, we can tell the police that he has indeed had sexual intercourse with the victim. Thus we can see that by a clever battery of tests, not only can we say that the woman is raped or not, we can also say who raped her. This medical evidence goes a long way in sending the accused to jail.

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-3 DID THE COMMUNISTS KILL THE CZAR ? Every one knows about the famous Russian Revolution of 1917, when a group of peasants under the leadership of Lenin overthrew the Russian King traditionally called the Czar. These peasants formed the Communist Party which ultimately brought in an era of long suppression. This long era of Communist rule was recently brought to an end. What is not generally known is that the Russian King at that time-Czar Nicholas II- along with his family was brutally murdered by the communists. According to tenets of democracy, even a tyrant King can not be killed without a fair trial. This caused discontentment among the Russian masses but they preferred to keep quiet because of the tyrannical communist rule. Recently, when the winds of change swept Russia, its people have begun to explore what really happened to their King in 1917. For this they have taken recourse to a new forensic technique- the DNA fingerprinting- and have roped in experts from Great Britain. Czar Nicholas II of Russia belonged to the Romanov family. At the time of Russian Revolution, 11 people living in Czar's palace were removed and imprisoned in the gloomy town of Ekaterinburg (This town is now known as Sverdlovsk, named after Jacob Sverdlov, the chief architect of the Czar's assassination). These 11 people included the Czar himself, his wife, his young son Alexie (who was suffering from a dangerous disease hemophilia. In this disease, even a minor scratch can lead to severe bleeding. His four daughters, Tatiana, Olga, Marie and Anastasia, his family physician Dr. Eugene Botkin, the empress maid Demidova, the Czar's valet Tropp and the family cook Kharitonov. These 11 people were shot dead on the night of July 16, 1918. Their bodies were taken to a mine shaft, where 150 gallons of gasoline were poured upon them and then the bodies burnt. The remains were hacked and sawn to pieces, then shoved down the shaft, with clothes and jewellery, 400 pounds of sulfuric acid dumped over it, all to dissolve the evidence of assassination. The world came to know of this horrible crime in 1919, when the White Army took over Ekaterinburg. Since then many theories have emerged that the grand duchess Anastasia survived the massacre. Some theories suggest that Anastasia and Alexie survived while some others suggest that the entire family somehow managed to escape the mass assassination. However, conclusive proof has never been forthcoming. Many imposters have tried to pass themselves as survivors of that massacre. The stakes were high- the Czar's family wealth in cash alone standing at a staggering $800 million. As early as February 17, 1920, a teenage girl was dragged semi-conscious from a canal in Berlin, who claimed to be Anastasia. She had a remarkable similarly to Anastasia and knew the minutest details of the royal family. Her claim was however rejected by a Hamburg Court in May 1968 and in February 1970, by the German Supreme Court. Nevertheless, it was necessary to know whether the Czar's family was massacred or not in 1918 and if at all it was, how many people were actually killed. Recent overthrow of the Communism in Russia fuelled this desire. Coupled with this was the fact that in 1985 a remarkable new forensic technique was developed by a British Scientist Prof. Alec jeffreys. This new technique is known as "DNA fingerprinting" or "Genetic fingerprinting". This was basically developed to find out whether a particular child belonged to a particular mother or not. The actual event which led to the development of this technique is very interesting. A Ghanaian woman and her child were living in Britain as British citizens. Once she and her child went to Ghana to meet their relatives. When they returned to Britain, the boy was stopped by the immigration authorities at the airport itself. They contended that the boy was an imposter and not the real son of that lady. In other words, they were asserting that the boy had been "switched" in Ghana. Blood tests of both the mother and alleged son were conducted, but they were not conclusive. Finally Prof Alec Jeffreys of Leicester University conclusively proved by his new technique that the child was indeed the son of that lady. This technique has now been used in a variety of criminal cases too. For example, if a scientist is given a drop of blood or semen of a person, he can pick out the man from whom it came, from among thousands of men. Every individual contains in his body cells, a unique chemical called DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid). This DNA differs in different individuals. The DNA of any particular individual will not match the DNA of any other individual in the world. this is the basis of DNA fingerprinting. This may appear to be a very astounding fact, but it isn't. We know that the face of an individual does not resemble the face of any other individual. We can recognize an individual among thousands by looking at his face. Prof Jeffreys developed a novel technique whereby the DNA of any individual could be seen as "bands" on a photographic place (Fig 1A) and matched with the DNA of any other individual. This technique is used in crime detection as follows. Suppose a raped and murdered woman is found. The scientist takes out the semen from the woman's genitals and prepares a DNA fingerprint from there (see fig 1B) . This is the column A. Now suppose there are 3 suspects X 1 , X 2 and X 3 . Blood is taken from all the three suspects and DNA fingerprints prepared again. It is seen that DNA fingerprint of X 2 matches exactly with that prepared from the semen (A). Thus X 2 is proved to be the criminal. In July 1991, the KGB exhumed nine skeletons from the Czar's presumed graves in Ekaterinburg. So one thing was certain. 11 people were not killed. Two people in fact escaped somehow. A joint Russian-British project was set up to apply the newly developed technique of DNA fingerprinting. The scientists involved were Dr. Pavel, 37, head of the forensic laboratory for gene fingerprinting (another name for DNA fingerprinting), in the Russian Bureau of Chief Medical Legal Examiner, Dr. Peter Gill, pioneer of forensic gene technology at the Molecular Genetic Laboratory, Aldermaston, Britain and Evin Sullivan, head of the British Forensic Science. First of all they established the sex of the individual skeletons. It was found that there were five female and four male skeletons. Then they tried to find the family group within these nine skeletons, because obviously all were not of Czar's family. They found five skeletons in family relationship and it was established that they were Czar, his wife (Czarina) and their three daughters. So obviously one son and one daughter (presumably Alexie and Anastasia) were missing, which confirmed several rumors that they had escaped. How could the doctors establish that the skeletons belonged to the Czar's family? By a very complicated procedure they first extracted DNA from all skeletons and prepared DNA fingerprints from them. Now if they had the real "known" blood of Czar and his family with them, the scientists could have prepared DNA fingerprints from that "known" blood and compared it with the fingerprints prepared from the boxes. If the fingerprints had matched, they could have positively said that the bones belonged to Czar's family. But this blood was not available. So scientists resorted to a different method which we can explain as below. Look at figure (2) . It shows 3 DNA fingerprints. The one on the extreme left is all red. They are the "bands" in the DNA fingerprint of a mother. The one on the extreme right contains all the white bands. They are the bands of father. Actually the bands do not have any color. They just look black. But here they are shown in different colors merely for understanding. Now the important fact to understand is that the son inherits half of his bands from his mother and half of the bands from his father. Which bands will be transferred from the mother and which ones from the father to the son is entirely a matter of chance, but one thing is certain- he will inherit just half of the bands from each parent. This is exactly what is seen in the middle of fig (2). There are many living Romanovs now and some of their bands must match with that of Czar and Czarina. British Royal Family is related to Romanov's family. Queen Victoria was the maternal grand mother of Russian Czarina (Alexandra Fedorovna) and Prince Philip of Edinburgh who is alive, is related to Queen Victoria. A mathematical calculation tells scientists just how many bands of Prince Philip must match the bands of Czarina and his daughters. Prince Philip was approached and he generously agreed to give his blood samples. From his blood, his DNA fingerprints were prepared. Simultaneously DNA fingerprints of Czarina and her daughters were prepared from the suspected skeletons. If those suspected skeletons really belonged to Czarina and her daughters, then a certain fixed number of bands prepared by mathematical biologists must match. To their surprise, the scientists found that the bands matched perfectly. This proved once and for all, that the suspected skeletons belonged to Czarina and her daughters Tatiana, Olga, and Marie. Now the problem was to find whether the suspected skeleton of Czar belonged to him or not. Since the identity of Tatiana, Olga and Marie was proved, it meant that half of their bands must have come from the Czar. When the matching was done between the DNA fingerprints of these three girls and the suspected Czar, the required number of bands matched again. This proved the identity of the Czar too. The problem now is to prove the identity of four other skeletons. Their relatives are being traced and once they are traced, the identity of these skeletons will also be proved beyond doubt. The problem remains: where are the skeletons of Alexie and Anastasia? Perhaps they really escaped as many rumors tell us. But where they are, nobody knows.

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-2 WHO HANDLED THE GUN ? Often a difficulty arises in cases of firing, about who fired the shot. The police wants to know from the scientist if a particular criminal has fired a gun or not. Consider a case where a man has been shot dead. Two witnesses have identified the assailant in an identification parade, within minutes of the incident. The suspected assailant keeps asserting that he hasn't fired the gun. Now how can one prove scientifically that the suspect did indeed fire the gun? Scientists make use of a curious fact involved in firing to test it. Each cartridge used in firing contains a propellant charge or powder which burns during he firing action. The commonly used powders are either black powder or smokeless powder. Black powder, also known as gun powder, consists of charcoal (15%), sulphur (10%) and potassium nitrate (75%). When ignited, it produces a lot of smoke. Smokeless powder contains either nitrocellulose alone (in which case it is known as a single base powder) or nitrocellulose mixed with nitroglycerine (in which case it is known as double base powder). Besides the propellant mixture, the cartridge also contains some special chemicals called the primer. These chemicals have the special property of getting ignited when subjected to great pressure. Several types of primers may be used, but the most commonly used are lead azide, lead styphnate, mercury fulminate, barium nitrate, potassium chlorate and antimony sulphide. In fact, when the trigger of a gun is pressed, the firing pin strikes the cartridge at a point where the primer is kept. This cause the primer to ignite. The flames thus produced ignited the propellant charge. The burning of the propellant charge produces large amounts of gases, which finally propel the bullet. So much so about the primer and black powder. Now how does the scientist make use of these facts? Actually when a gun is fired, the products of combustion (of propellant and primer) come out of the barrel of the gun. Some may leak through the back of the gun and may get deposited on the hands of the person who has fired. Depending of whether the gun was handled by the right or the left hand, the products of combustion get deposited on certain specific areas of the hand which are exposed. (fig. 1) Now if somehow, one can detect the products of combustion from the hands, one can be in a fairly good position to say whether the accused did handle the gun. The first such idea occurred to Teodoro Gonzalez of the Criminal Identification Laboratory, Mexico City police headquarters, as far back as in 1933. He employed, what later became famous as the "paraffin test", also known as the "Dermal nitrate" or "diphenylamine test". In this test, the hands of the suspect are coated with a layer of paraffin. After cooling, the casts are removed and treated with an acid solution of diphenylamine. This reagent detects nitrites and nitrates that originate from gun powder and are deposited on the hands of the criminal. A positive test is indicated by the presence of blue flecks in the paraffin. In 1959, two scientists Harrison and Gilroy introduced another test. This test was designed to detect chemicals such as barium, antimony and lead. Those chemicals are produced by the burning of the primer and may get deposited on the hands of the criminal. This test, too, is used frequently to determine whether a criminal indeed fired a shot. In this test, a square of white cotton cloth is moistened with hydrochloric acid. This is a common chemical used in most laboratories. Most people know it by the name tezaab , which is sometimes used to clean toilets. However, the acid that is used in the test is quite diluted; so it does not burn the hands of the suspect. The cotton cloth, moistened with this diluted hydrochloric acid, is used to swab the hands of the suspect. If the suspect has fired the gun, the particles of the chemicals mentioned above will get transferred to the cotton. The cotton swab is then treated with a special chemical triphenyl methyl arsonium iodide also known as "antimony detector" (because it detects antimony). To be more accurate, the cotton swab is split into two. One half is treated with the above chemical, which detects antimony and the other half with another chemical called sodium rhodizonate. This chemical detects the presence of barium and lead, by changing the color of the cotton, treated with either chemical changes, then it is confirmed decisively that the person is the culprit. Several times, I have been asked by the police to opine if a particular criminal fired the fun or not and I have used these two tests to my benefit with great accuracy. Most of the time, criminals have been prosecuted on this evidence. SO next time when you read in newspapers that the scientists determined the actual gun man by conducting certain tests, don't be in awe. You know exactly what chemicals and tests have been used. Who knows, you might even give a hint or two to the police!

SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-1 WHEN DID THE MURDER TAKE PLACE ? Many a time I have been called by the police to places where dead bodies are lying and I am asked to tell them when a particular person was done to death. This is a very important question for the police to know. Imagine a person found dead in a hotel room at 10.00 pm by a waiter. Visitors' register and statements of various hotel employees reveal that four people met that man on that day at 10 am, 1 pm, 3 pm, and 7 pm respectively. Obviously, the murder was committed by one of them. Many might imagine the last visitor to be the murderer, because, had an earlier visitor murdered the man, the next visitor would have informed the police. But this is not necessarily so. A man might knock at the door, get no answer and return. Also, a visitor with a criminal record may have been too afraid to inform about the murder, even if he had discovered the dead body. Thus, it becomes very important to tell exactly when the person died. We use a very ingenious technique to do that. A law of physics says that a hot body always comes back to the temperature of its surroundings. Thus if you keep a glass of hot milk on the table, after sometime, the milk cools down. Our bodies also work similarly. While living, however, the various life processes keep the human body warm and do not let the body cool. At the time of death, all life processes stop and the body starts cooling down. All human beings have a temperature of 98.4 0 Fahrenheit. The surrounding temperature in shade varies from 60 0 to 80 0 Fahrenheit depending upon the weather. So, after death, the body tends to cool down and come to the temperature of the environment. We do not take the temperature of the dead body by keeping the thermometer in the mouth, as is done in living beings. This is due to various reasons. For one thing, we are interested in taking the core temperature of the dead body and not the surface temperature. Core temperature is the temperature of the internal organs of the body, while surface temperature is the temperature of the skin. Surface temperature is generally lower than the core temperature. Thermometer in the mouth or axilla gives the surface temperature, which is not of much interest to us. Another reason why we do not take the mouth temperature is that the jaws become stiff after death. So, it becomes very difficult to open the mouth of a dead person and if someone forcibly inserted the thermometer in the mouth, there is every likelihood of the thermometer getting cracked. After death, the body starts cooling in a well-defined way. In summers, a dead body cools by about 0.75 0 Fahrenheit ever hour and in winters, it cools faster- by about 1.5 0 Fahrenheit every hour. The first thing that we do after arriving at the scene of crime is to insert a thermometer deed in the rectum of the dead body ( see figure 1). We insert it almost 4-5 inches deep. This gives us the core temperature of the body, in which we are interested. In fact, there are several ways to take the core temperature of the body, but this is the simplest. Many doctors prefer to make a small incision (about 0.5 cm), just below the rib margin on the right side of the body and insert the thermometer deep in this nick ( see figure 2 ) . Since the liver lies just below this nick, the thermometer gets inserted in the liver. This procedure also reveals the core temperature but many doctor do not prefer this method, because it injures the liver. Later, when the body is opened for post mortem, some difficulties may be encountered in assessing the injuries to the liver, if there are any. This is because the insertion of the thermometer may have interfered with the injuries already present in the liver. Some other doctors prefer to take the brain temperature. For this, they drill a hole in the skull and then insert the thermometer deep inside the brain. In the case of females, some doctors prefer to insert the thermometer in the vagina and take the vaginal temperature. However the most common site remains the rectum, as shown in the figure. We already know the rate of cooling of the body after death. Suppose I am called by the police at 10.00 pm to a hotel room, where a dead body is lying. I will first of all take the rectal temperature. Suppose the temperature is found to be 87 0 Fahrenheit. It is the month of February and I know that dead body cools at the rate of 1.5 0 Fahrenheit every hour in winter months. The loss in temperature is (97.4-87) 0 or about 10.4 0 Fahrenheit. Dividing it by 1.5, I get the number of hours the person has been dead to be seven. I deduct 7 hours from 10 pm (the time when I am making the examination) and arrive at the correct time of murder- 3 pm. The police summons the visitor who called the murdered man at 3 pm, and detailed questioning begins. Simple, isn't it? But as Sherlock Holmes used to say, all deductions seem simple when they are explained. They are difficult only till they remain unexplained. (Next issue: From what distance did the person fire?)

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SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION-8 WHEN THE BODY TURNS INTO WAX ! Saroj, 16, and Mahendra, 12 were brother and sister. On June 8, 1987, they went to play as usual in the garden, but they never returned. Saroj was a beautiful girl and her parents were always quite reserved in allowing her out alone. On that day however, she was able to cajole her parents into allowing her to go out with her brother. A complaint with the police did not result in any benefit either. The police asked various questions, including about the people the parents suspected. But the family had no enemies whatsoever. As time passed, it became clear that Saroj and Mahendra were kidnapped by some gang, presumably with the purpose of having intercourse with Saroj. There was a gang in town which had once kidnapped a young 19 year old girl, kept her in detention for as many as three months, during which she was forced into intercourse day and night. When the gang members were tired of sex, they would all sit together in a circle and ask her to perform naked dances in the center. After meting out this inhuman treatment to her for three months, they finally did away with her. Her body was found three and a half months later, quite putrefied in a forest. Only one member of the gang could be arrested and from him, the whole story was revealed. The body bore several stab marks, which showed that the modus operandi of the gang was to kill by stabbing. Lakhiram and Revati, the parents of Saroj and Mahendra shivered at this thought. They kept searching for their children, but without any success. On January 15, 1988, one highly putrefied body was found in a forest about 50 miles away from the village of Lakhiram and Revati. Most of the body had been eaten away by animals and maggots were crawling on what remained of the corpse. It was impossible to identify the dead person from the remains. I was called by the police inspector at the place. I made some preliminary examination of the bone and told the police that the bones belonged to a male between 11 and 13 years of age. Moreover, the person, whoever he was, had suffered osteomyelitis (an infection of the bone) in his right leg, about two year before. This description fitted Mahendra exactly. Lakhiram and Revati were immediately contacted and they admitted that Mahendra had suffered from a terrible weeping sore about two and a half years back and also that the sore had healed with great difficulty after about six months of treatment. This, of course, is not the main part of the story. This only established that the victim was Mahendra. But I could not say who had killed him or how had he been killed. This was vital for the police to know. One thing however became clear. If Mahendra had been killed, it was quite possible that his sister Saroj had also been killed and was disposed off in a nearby area itself. A police party launched a massive search for the body of Saroj. They were expecting her body, too, to be in the same state of deterioration; so everyone's stomach was turning topsy-turvy. But lo and behold! Two days later a constable of the search party accidentally stumbled upon a quite well-preserved body of a teenaged girl on the shores of a nearby pond. The body was naked and so well preserved that everybody could at once recognize it was Saroj. When the search party touched the body, it felt as it was like soft wax. Everyone was nonplussed. What had happened to Saroj? I was called immediately. When I arrived there and looked at the body, I realized at once that I was dealing with an adipocere. I rubbed some of the body's material between my thumb and index finger. It gave me a cheesy feeling. I smelt the material. The smell was somewhat similar to that of old cheese. Here then was the body of Saroj, turned into adipocere and intuitively I knew that now I could tell a lot of things to the police regarding the crime. Let us introduce a red herring into the story and first see what an adipocere is. The word adipocere comes from two Latin words, adeps meaning fat and sera meaning wax. It is also known by several other names such as Grave Wax, Mortuary Fat , or Saponified Tissue . This is a situation when the body fat turns into wax under certain special conditions. When a person is killed and thrown away in a forest, his body will normally putrefy. But if there is water in the vicinity or the ground on which the body is thrown is wet and the temperature is quite high then the conditions are just right for the body fats to turn into wax. A very complex chemical reaction takes place for this to happen. For the more scientifically-minded readers, the unsaturated body fats are first saturated to firmer fats and this firmer fat is then split into fatty acids and glycerol. Glycerol usually drains away. The remaining fatty acids (mainly saturated fatty acids such as palmatic acid, stearic acid, hydroxystearic acid and oleic acid) may then combine with body calcium to form soaps and waxes. Adipocere is thus essentially composed of saturated fatty acids such as palmatic acid, stearic acid, hydroxystearic acid, oleic acid and their calcium salts. Adipocere forms mainly at those parts of the body where there is a lot of accumulation of body fat. Such areas are cheeks, buttocks, breasts and thighs. Since Saroj's body had been thrown near a pond, the conditions were just right for her body to be turned into adipocere. Once a body turns into adipocere, it does not undergo normal decomposition, and remains as such. It gives the forensic expert a lot of benefits. For one thing, the features of the person remain discernible. Secondly, since the body is more or less preserved, one can say how the person died. Adipocere is a yellowish white, greasy, wax like substance with a rancid smell. It is lighter than water. If we cut out some adipocere from the body of such a person, and put it in water, we find that it will float. It cuts easily and burns with a faint yellow flame giving offensive odor. Fresh adipocere is soft and moist, but old samples are dry and brittle. Adipocere takes about 3 months to form, so we can form a idea when the person was done to death. The body of Saroj was found on January 15, 1988. So, at a rough guess, she must have been killed on or around October 15, 1987. She had been kidnapped on June 8, 1987. So it appeared that she had been kept in captivity for about 4 months. This pointed to her having been used for sexual purposes. Since her body was well preserved, I could examine her genitals, which too had been converted into adipocere. Her hymen, the soft membrane which cover the vagina, was completely mutilated indicating that she had indeed been used for sexual intercourse. Her left breast and both buttocks showed very clear stab wounds. These stab wounds would normally have been obliterated if normal putrefaction had set in. But since her body had been converted into the wax-like adipocere, the stab marks were clearly visible. Her kidnapping and confinement, her use as an object of sexual intercourse and the method of her killing, all pointed to the dreaded Devi gang which had earlier done the same deed. Devi gang had big political connections and until and unless the police had solid clues to back them, they could not dare to touch the gang. But now since I had provided them with all vital clues, they went fully armed to nab the Devi Gang and made tough inquires. Sure enough, very soon, the gang cracked up and confessed to the abduction, sexual molestation and killing of Saroj. They had to finally kill Saroj because she had become pregnant. When the case went to court, the court admitted my medical evidence and had no difficulty in convicting the members of Devi gang. In this particular case, my knowledge of science helped me to unravel crime. A non-specialist would have been quite nonplussed to see the waxy body of Saroj, but I knew it was adipocere. To summarize, this adipocere formation helped me to (i) establish her identity (ii) establish the cause of her death and (iii) indicate the time of her death. These facts together enabled me to weave a coherent story which ultimately helped in catching the culprits.